THE fast-spreading MyDoom computer worm shattered confidence in internet security this week when it brought down a major software company鈥檚 website. Security experts fear MyDoom鈥檚 success will prompt further debilitating attacks on websites.
The MyDoom worm mounted a distributed denial of service (DDOS) attack on a scale never seen before. It flooded the Utah-based SCO Group鈥檚 website with requests for its homepage early on Sunday morning, and is programmed to continue doing so until 12 February. The requests came from computers the worm had infected.
Although Microsoft, the US government and anti-spam companies have all been victims of DDOS attacks before, no single computer worm has previously enlisted the help of so many computers. Finnish security software company F-secure estimates that MyDoom managed to infect a million machines in just a few days.
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Both SCO and Microsoft, which was expecting a similar but less aggressive MyDoom attack as New Scientist went to press, have offered rewards of $250,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of MyDoom鈥檚 authors.
Suspicion over MyDoom鈥檚 authorship is centring on supporters of open-source software. The SCO Group incurred the wrath of open-source fans by filing lawsuits that claim the Linux operating system contains proprietary SCO code. Open-source supporters insist they had nothing to do with the MyDoom attack, and fear it could discredit their case.
